06-12-2002, 09:50 AM
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#61
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Honorary Member
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: West Coast
Posts: 5,714
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Quote:
Originally posted by geoff:
. . . *For those who take issue with my definition, cf. Keith Augustine, "A Defense of Naturalism", available in the infidels library.
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Keith Augustine responds:
Quote:
Keith Augustine: The definition of naturalism I propose is:
"[N]aturalism is the position that everything that exists within nature is itself natural and is solely influenced by natural causes."
Which is not the claim that everything that exists is natural':
"Naturalism, as I conceive it, thus allows the existence of both nature and realms that may exist outside of nature; it simply stipulates that any nonnatural realms which may exist cannot causally influence the natural world."
My definition of naturalism allows the existence of nonnatural objects and the realms in which they reside. There are good grounds, I think, for saying that Platonic abstract objects are not natural--they aren't on any of the definitions of 'natural' I consider, for example. The existence of a Platonic realm (presumably a nonnatural realm) is no threat to naturalism, as I define it. Naturalists can allow the existence a Platonic realm of abstract objects where numbers reside (that doesn't mean they should, of course--but that depends on arguments for or against Platonism, a separate issue).
In other words, naturalism is compatible with the existence of Platonic abstract objects. If such objects exist, then their existence would be a brute fact about reality. Naturalism can allow the existence of nonnatural abstract objects so long as they do not cause changes in the physical world--and all contemporary Platonists, so far as I know, agree (by definition) that abstract objects are acausal at least in this sense.
Hence, there is no incompatibility between Platonic realism and metaphysical naturalism (as I define the latter), as I point out:
"[I]f naturalism merely entails that everything that exists within nature is itself natural and is solely influenced by natural causes, then naturalism can admit the existence of nonnatural abstract objects which exist outside of nature and do not causally influence the natural world."
This is the definition of naturalism I suggest; hence there is no incompatibility between naturalism and Platonism per se, though there may be an incompatibility between Platonism and more restricted definitions of naturalism. But this would be an argument against those more restricted forms of naturalism. It would not defeat other forms of naturalism, such as the one I defend.
If others didn't put this line of argument together in the meat of the essay, they should've gotten this point from the conclusion, where I make it as explicit as possible:
"[N]aturalism at least entails that nonnatural causes of events within the natural world--that is, supernatural causes--do not exist. This weaker definition is more desirable because it leaves open the possibility that nonnatural realms (such as a Platonic realm of abstract objects) exist."
Regards, KA
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